quietus - noun
1.Something that serves to suppress, check, or eliminate.
2.Release from life; death.
3. A final discharge, as of a duty or debt.

Fantasy, original story.

But I'll swear it is true. Somewhere.

Rated R for language.

~*~

( He held out a feather and three pebbles. The immigration official stared at his palm, then looked up at him. )

Take an egg, the last of the butter and the ends of a brown loaf from the fridge.
Add a resolution to go grocery shopping soon.

Set water to boil for coffee and brush your teeth as a grey sky rumbles outside the window.
Add a clock that should be ten minutes fast but is actually slow.

Drink scalding hot coffee with milk gone slightly off as you fumble to find wrinkle-free clothes.
Look at your wristwatch. Add a curse.
Forget the ironing. Finish the coffee.

Make a fried-egg sandwich and dump the dishes in the sink. Grab the sandwich, forget your cellphone, wonder whether or not to get it as you bang the door and clatter down the stairs.

Slip and fall running for the bus. Save the sandwich from the mud. Miss the bus.

Add another curse.

Stand with a slightly soggy fried-egg sandwich in one hand as the rain pours outside the crowded bus shelter, as you wait for the next bus, and you can't even phone in to say you'll be late.

Realise that you can't even phone in to say you'll be late.

Shrug and try not to let the dripping umbrellas rain on your sandwich.

Oddly enough, it still tastes pretty good.

Woo me with grammatical honesty and passion.

Else don't bother.

~*~

To be a writer is to have the ability to be most content in your own world.

In other words, you bore me.

~*~

I'm a cynical romantic.

I'm cynical about you ever being romantic.

~*~

Yes, I'm heartbroken that we're breaking up, and yes, I do intend to turn the experience into a 5,000 word story. What else did you expect? And what do you mean THAT'S why we're breaking up?

~*~

Please ignore every Hindi movie you may ever have seen. When a woman says "No", she is NOT telling you to please try harder.

~*~

Yes, of course I heard you say you'd die for me. I was waiting for the sound of splashing as you dive into the freezing sea to prove it.


~*~

You wrote me a poem. How very sweet!

...

I could have written this a lot better.


~*~

The truest test of love is if I can show this to you and know you'll smile.

The gorilla in the flat upstairs came down at lunchtime to borrow my blender. I had a bit of trouble understanding him, as I never learned gorilla sign language, but after a slight misunderstanding about the bananas he was waving about, I invited him in to make use of the kitchen.

The poor chap's just moved here recently, after ten years in Europe spent on the run from his tamers in the Russian circus. (They were rather too fond of him, if I understood his gestures correctly. Then again he might have just been offering to show me how they peel bananas in Bangkok.) He stowed away on a cargo ship and was so miserable for 3 months at sea that when he got out at Singapore port in sailor-garb, just to stretch his legs, he was pale enough to be mistaken for an ang mo man who needed to be shown that Singapore's 'correct hair length for men' laws are not meant to be flouted. So he received a partial depilatory at the hands of two tight-lipped customs officials and soon found himself footloose and facial hair-less at the quay. He then joined a party of law-abiding Norwegian sailors who were going to the zoo.

For reasons I won't mention - since I couldn't quite translate my neighbour's gestures - after that afternoon at the zoo, the gorilla decided to stay in Singapore for the foreseeable future. The depilatory effect lasted long enough for him to get a job, cleaning windows, and rent a flat - cheque's in the mail, his landlord never sees him. The job is still in effect, in fact he gave my windows a free cleaning after lunch, just to thank me for the use of my blender.

You may be wondering why a gorilla needs to blend his bananas. So was I, though I figured out soon enough that his jaw hurt mightily, in fact he might have dislocated it. Doing what? you ask. Well, I don't really know... but I do know that todays Home News featured the amazing Ah Meng, the Singapore Zoo's most famous orangutan, who has been caught sticking flowers behind his ear and avoiding the attentions of his numerous wives and concubines.

Talk about a love that cannot speak its name...

I recommend that everyone leave the colour of their skin behind
and journey as an alien to one unfamiliar land. I recommend
groping in surreal stupor for some beloved trait you never thought
defined you - perhaps the language of the shop signs or the
food sizzling on pavement stalls, perhaps the hideous neverending
sweat of summer or the cold chill of winter's wind. I recommend
going to a land with no seasons if you are used to climes. I recommend
uprooting every tiny habit and rootlet that ties you down to a place,
a face, a skin, a colour, a race, a land. I recommend the shocked disbelief
that comes before facing how unutterably, terribly alien you must be in a mirror.
I recommend the pride that comes from realising how unique this setting is
making you seem.

I recommend then, taking a deep breath, and listening with your heart.
The cadences of the voices may jar, but the intent of each note is still the same:
to communicate, despite unreadable signs, unseasonable winds, unreasonable times,
to bridge the vast black chasm between not-so-unidentical sibs, each a prisoner of the mind
a voyager of the heart. I recommend walking, losing yourself in a crowd
and finding that you can indeed be lost in strangers, found in friends. I recommend reaching
out to touch an old man's hand and offering him your seat in a bus. The smile, I find,
is never and always the same. I recommend smiling back.

The lift stops on alternate even floors
It is small and cramped with huge steel doors
We fill in silently, press to the walls
We look away from each other, we don't speak at all
Except for her. She always breaks silence, this mother of one
Shatters the early morning quiet by addressing her son
Buttoning his shirt or dusting it or combing his hair
While he stands silently, not cowed by her glare
Or scolding comb. He is not fooled by the words or the bite
Beneath her bark. They show her pride in him, her joy and delight
In her family. Her silent husband watches, pressed against the wall
Overseeing wife and child. He does not speak at all
Until the lift comes down and we spread out into separate lives
When he says something in dialect, his fingers grip his wife's
And I look back to envy them, the quiet, moving three
Remnant of an endangered species, the loving family.

If you offer me love on the hilt of a knife, don't think that I won't take it
If you offer me peace by turning your cheek, don't think that I will fake it
Don't offer your self to me, naked and bare, and expect me to abstain
From kicking and punching and silently driving in the festering rage and pain

Your fault, remember, in ages past, you were the first to strike
To take out your anger and sorrow and hate on my body in the night
And after you came with your hands and your pain and your tears running down your cheek
And I hated you then as I hate you more now and I will never again be meek

If you offer yourself on the edge of a knife don't think that I'll look away
I won't lose my composure if you offer me closure by surrendering yourself this way
Don't offer a knife that you think I won't use, I am not who you thought me to be
And I won't cry as I hurt you or stab you or hate you - you aren't worth such emotion from me

You made it happen, remember, by treating me then as a part of you, not a whole
Apart, I am strong now, a strength you long for now, you wish to reprise a role
That lifted, sustained you; as I am now I drain you, I give you reasons to be afraid
So go now and leave me, walk away from this safely, I'm nothing that you made

I am better than you, unfettered, though you seek to bind me - I won't be bound
You are just a bad memory, dead to me, lost to me, your ghosts no longer surround
This much I will give you; go now and live, for your death holds no meaning for me
Take your knife and your pain, your hope is in vain, I will not bear your agony.

But if you offer again the edge of a blade and your vulnerable back to me
Don't expect me to pity you, or to forgive you,
There isn't such grace in me

~*~

This in memory of a cathartic rage I flew into last year. :-) It was a lot of fun to write.

~*~

You shall not have these words, sir
To hold at your damn leisure
This is not just a book, sir
It is my only treasure

What know you of the nights I've spent staring at my blank white screen?
What know you of the fingers bled in hammering out my dream?
What know you of the dread I face, the tremulous sweet respite
When one small letter, word or phrase comes perfect in the night?
What know you of the tears I've shed while working towards perfection?
You would commit me to the grave without hope of resurrection!

You will not have my words, sir
To wait upon your pleasure
If you won't publish them now, be damned, sir
They are too large for your measure

I wrote before, will write again; I will never now be crushed
Your so-kindly-meant rejection slip means less to me than dust
You think you have some power, yes, to influence my dreams?
You dare to sit in your ivory tower and blithely dismiss my themes?
I deserved more than you could give; not quite your fault 'tis true
But you had my work and sent it back; that I can never forgive you

So you shall not have my words, sir
Or make me wait upon your leisure
And when I make the top ten list without you, sir
May you survive your mild heart seizure.

~*~

:-P

I've begun writing poems again. This to all on my reading list. It was not meant to embarrass or offend.

( Read more... )